Cringely's bottom line is this: Microsoft stands to make a lot of money (YEMV - Your Estimates May Vary) by convincing people that the only way to deal with spyware is to upgrade their Windows 98/2000 systems to XP SP2.
Also, as someone else pointed out, Microsoft hasn't "fixed" anything - they just bought a couple of companies for peanuts and are using them to try to get people to give them a multi-score-million or multi-billion increase in revenue this year.
I repeat, increased revenue - no actual fix.
Sounds like Bill to me. You don't have to hate Microsoft (although I do) to recognize - as every biographer of him has - that Bill is about money and nothing else.
Speaking of reducing prices, read the latest Cringely column. He predicts Microsoft will net billions more in revenue by issuing their antispyware software free.
And here I thought Bill was finally smart enough to realize that charging for the ASW product would be a pittance in revenue compared to the bad publicity about charging for fixes to one's own flaws.
When in reality, the point of releasing the ASW software for free was to put the other companies out of business and force 100 million upgrades to XP SP2, thereby generating billions more in revenue.
In other words, as Cringely puts it, even Microsoft's "good" actions have a predatory purpose.
Fortunately Cringely also suggests this will hurt Microsoft later.
Actually the key is to BE the machine intelligence - that is HOW you get to leave AFTER turning the world (well, not the world, just the idiot monkees) into grey goo...
I have news for you. The Ukraine election was rigged by the US to put its puppet in charge to further its goals of forcing Russia and China back into a Cold War with the US.
No, I'm not joking. Read up on the Ukrainian challenger and who his supporters were and their connections to the US and Russian oligarchs.
There is NOTHING US citizens can do about the US government - unless they're prepared to pick up a gun - which they're not because they're too brainwashed and submissive after two centuries of bullshit about "American democracy". The state is the state and this is the way all states behave.
You want to do something about it. Advance the rate of technological progress - especially nanotech - so I can obtain the tools I need to provide a Final Solution to these morons.
You know you're going to get hammered by Monday-morning quarterbacks, don't you?
Like me:
Monday: Email client runs out of disk space. Obviously you should have a job checking for this on such a server. (I should talk - my babe pictures just filled up my Images partition...AND my Windows 2000 and XP root partitions are too small, so EVERYTHING has to be moved...)
Thursday: Someone forgets their user name!? Change the fucking username to something new!!! The admins can't find him and move his shit over to a new account? Jesus Baron Von Christ!
Thursday: Popups. Fire said admin - obviously clueless. For longer term success, dump IE - or at least install one of the fifty million popup blockers available for free.
"I suppose it's all about what level of service you want to provide to your users."
Good point.
If you don't provide ANY service to end users (except replacing dead machines), you can have any number of PCs per admin...
I think that's how Windows admins usually do it...
UNIX/Linux admins do something similar - they just sit you down in front of the PC and when you want something, they say, no, you can't have it because it's a security risk. So you don't get it (because you don't have root access), so you never have a problem. But you also don't get what you want.
Actually, I don't think either method is the way to support end users.
This may not be because the sys admins are bad people - it may just be because computer technology still sucks rocks...
Remember, there is no such thing as military security.
Why Al Qaeda hasn't figured this out yet baffles me.
Considering that the idiots are using books from libraries printed in the 1920's to learn about chemical warfare, I'm not too surprised, though.
The bottom line: the state needs enemies. The reason bin Laden hasn't been found is because Bush loves him like a brother for giving him an excuse to further the neocon agenda of fascism at home and imperialism abroad.
I just got around to downloading the Antispyware tool which has the option (not required) to use the Validation process. I decided to test the validation and discovered the following.
First, if you have a software firewall installed (I have Kerio 2.4.15), it will block the GenuineCheck program unless you allow the firewall to ask you first and give permission. I don't think MS warns you about that, although people using a firewall should know it - but I bet most don't, especially if they are just using the Windows XP SP2 firewall which is on by default.
Second, Microsoft fails to validate my system, then goes on to require a download of a SECOND piece of software which ALSO requires permission to get through the firewall AND fails to identify my system.
For the record, my Windows 2000 on which this was tested was provided to me by a developer with a legitimate key based on his membership in the MSDN program in which he gets ten seats for every MS OS there is. I am one of his "seats" nominally. Therefore my Product Key should validate.
In any event, the Validation process is onerous, stupid and fails miserably. Any "grandma" trying to go through this process is not going to be amused.
Why they don't make this as simple as Windows XP "activation" is beyond me.
Oh, yes, and you have to run as Administrator for the process to work at all, apparently (I didn't bother)...
Really secure validation method, MS, way to go, Bill - you fucking moron...
More proof that Bill is only interested in MONEY, NOT security...
They want EVERYONE upgrading to XP so they can get more revenue to offset their constant slide down into the single digits revenue growth.
In other words, Gates is NOT concerned about ANYTHING except that MS gets more money.
Period.
End of story./. should not even bother posting stories about Microsoft any more since the above sentence completely and totally defines every action they have ever taken or ever will take.
Just post a heading once a week that says:
"Microsoft fucks everybody for money again this week..."
All you need to know...who cares about the details?
(Reference to the "Gannon/Guckert" case of a gay prostitute accessing the White House press room under a phoney name to ask Scott McClellan setup questions. Google for the story. Maureen Dowd's take on it is hilarious.)
Seems like Microsoft has taken up the same method of subverting the legitimate press just like Bush has.
When you add in Maureen O'Gara and Rob Enderle, it would seem so...
"The setups were hypothetical, however. Both were in the most basic configuration, an approach that some in the audience suggested may tilt the results in favor of Windows, which comes with more features.
Ford said the idea was to represent what an average system administrator may do, as opposed to a "wizard" who could take extra steps to provide plenty of security on a Linux setup, for instance."
In other words, an MS mouse monkey is considered better than someone who knows what he's doing.
Let's try that again - namely, let's set up the Windows server with it set to max lockdown versus a Linux server set the same way. Then let the hackers at both of them and see which falls first.
Didn't try that, did they? Didn't think so...
Second: this is a WEB SERVER test - a system set up to ALLOW access. NONE of this has ANY bearing on Windows predilection for allowing spyware, viruses, trojans, worms, etc. into the operating system.
Not to mention that IIS 6 is reputedly much more secure than IIS 5. Let's try it with IIS 5 which is probably in more use than 6 worldwide.
In other words, the headline that Windows is more secure than Linux is BULLSHIT AS USUAL.
It may be marketing fluff, but you can blame the nanotech Johnny-come-latelies who decided to call everything in chemistry "nanotech" so they could steamroll Drexler's concepts and get the credit for themselves, while arguing that none of Drexler's ideas were valid.
Richard Smalley comes to mind...
Character assassination and nit-picking are so much easier than coming up with an original idea.
Look at/.
BTW, nanotech does not build things "atom by atom" - it is intended to build on a molecular scale, not an atomic scale. In some cases, such as the famous IBM initials spelled out in atoms, this is relevant, but in most cases nanotech will be operating on molecules, not atoms.
That will be the prelude to femtotech, picotech, etc...:-)
China is promoting Linux and will continue to do so. The real threat will come when Lenovo, using IBM's expertise, starts producing serious amounts of actual PC hardware for export to the West rather than just for the Chinese.
Neither the US nor Japan nor Taiwan are going to like that at all.
China's "extension to the West" is IBM, not Microsoft.
That's not what I've read. What I've read from several sources is that it PROTECTS more than Spybot, but finds little more than Ad-Aware and Spybot used in combination - and does not find things that the other two do - just like the other two.
In other words, run all three to enhance your protection.
In other news, Condi says Iran is a "totalitarian state trying to get nuclear weapons..."
Well, this guy can join the other lying bitch in my trashcan...
Real tough questions tossed at him, Rob..."How can you say Windows TCO is lower than Linux?"...Way to go...
How about "When are you fucking monopolists going to start sueing everybody with your patents - maybe when FireFox has ninety percent of the browser market...?"
How about "How many MORE 'security initiatives' is Bill going to launch this year alone?"
And how about "Is WinFS the same file system you guys were planning about ten years ago...and you still can't do it?"
Fucking crap interview - I get more insight from Scott McClellan...or maybe the "fair and balanced" sex freak O'Reilly...
This "rewrite" is simply to tighten - supposedly; we all know how good Microsoft is at this - security holes in IE.
In other words, this piece of shit will STILL be totally incompatible with HTML, CSS and ECMAScript standards - AND five minutes after it is downloaded, there will be five security holes found in it.
Same old Microsoft bullshit. They need to coin an acronym for "Yet Another Microsoft Security Initiative"...
Bottom line: more lies. More bullshit. (Yes, I remember Elwood: "It's not lies. It's just...bullshit.")
Let me clue you in. There are dozens of companies selling Usenet access at reasonable prices. Usenet is THE premier - and one-stop - place to get FREE babe pictures (without spyware or popups or dialers or whatever.) It is also an excellent one-stop place to get questions answered about virtually any subject.
"IBM has been spending the last couple years paddling to get in position to ride that wave if it crests."
And the sale of the PC division to the Chinese is one of those "paddles"...
Which is why Bill is moaning and groaning about "communists" since he can see the Chinese writing on the wall - and it spells "Linux" - however you do that in Chinese..:-)
In twenty years, the Chinese will BURY Microsoft by shutting them out of the biggest middle-class economy on the planet...
(Unless of course Bush nukes them first - which is what the whole North Korea thing is about...)
"the MS folks (in general) have a pretty good grasp on anything said here, and if there is something to learn from a post or topic, they learn it."
Right - some low-level coder thinks he gets the idea of OSS from/. - and you think Bill and Steve are going to care?
Get serious.
Besides which, as far as I'm concerned, most of Microsoft's people are morons, based on the quality of software they turn out...
And if they aren't morons as far as software quality, then they're morons for working for a company with the product managers who control the sorry product that does get turned out...
But then, most humans are morons, so why should I be surprised...
Slashdot Mirror
Cringely's bottom line is this: Microsoft stands to make a lot of money (YEMV - Your Estimates May Vary) by convincing people that the only way to deal with spyware is to upgrade their Windows 98/2000 systems to XP SP2.
Also, as someone else pointed out, Microsoft hasn't "fixed" anything - they just bought a couple of companies for peanuts and are using them to try to get people to give them a multi-score-million or multi-billion increase in revenue this year.
I repeat, increased revenue - no actual fix.
Sounds like Bill to me. You don't have to hate Microsoft (although I do) to recognize - as every biographer of him has - that Bill is about money and nothing else.
Speaking of reducing prices, read the latest Cringely column. He predicts Microsoft will net billions more in revenue by issuing their antispyware software free.
And here I thought Bill was finally smart enough to realize that charging for the ASW product would be a pittance in revenue compared to the bad publicity about charging for fixes to one's own flaws.
When in reality, the point of releasing the ASW software for free was to put the other companies out of business and force 100 million upgrades to XP SP2, thereby generating billions more in revenue.
In other words, as Cringely puts it, even Microsoft's "good" actions have a predatory purpose.
Fortunately Cringely also suggests this will hurt Microsoft later.
Actually the key is to BE the machine intelligence - that is HOW you get to leave AFTER turning the world (well, not the world, just the idiot monkees) into grey goo...
The Ukraine?
I have news for you. The Ukraine election was rigged by the US to put its puppet in charge to further its goals of forcing Russia and China back into a Cold War with the US.
No, I'm not joking. Read up on the Ukrainian challenger and who his supporters were and their connections to the US and Russian oligarchs.
There is NOTHING US citizens can do about the US government - unless they're prepared to pick up a gun - which they're not because they're too brainwashed and submissive after two centuries of bullshit about "American democracy". The state is the state and this is the way all states behave.
You want to do something about it. Advance the rate of technological progress - especially nanotech - so I can obtain the tools I need to provide a Final Solution to these morons.
"a data transmission path at speeds up to 10 Mbps between any two points on the body"
Just show me Paris Hilton's picture...
Or Angelina Jolie...
Or Sharon Corr...
Or...
Now the homeless people can have something to tally their stuff with!
You know you're going to get hammered by Monday-morning quarterbacks, don't you?
Like me:
Monday: Email client runs out of disk space. Obviously you should have a job checking for this on such a server. (I should talk - my babe pictures just filled up my Images partition...AND my Windows 2000 and XP root partitions are too small, so EVERYTHING has to be moved...)
Thursday: Someone forgets their user name!? Change the fucking username to something new!!! The admins can't find him and move his shit over to a new account? Jesus Baron Von Christ!
Thursday: Popups. Fire said admin - obviously clueless. For longer term success, dump IE - or at least install one of the fifty million popup blockers available for free.
"I suppose it's all about what level of service you want to provide to your users."
Good point.
If you don't provide ANY service to end users (except replacing dead machines), you can have any number of PCs per admin...
I think that's how Windows admins usually do it...
UNIX/Linux admins do something similar - they just sit you down in front of the PC and when you want something, they say, no, you can't have it because it's a security risk. So you don't get it (because you don't have root access), so you never have a problem. But you also don't get what you want.
Actually, I don't think either method is the way to support end users.
This may not be because the sys admins are bad people - it may just be because computer technology still sucks rocks...
"They can't possibly account for every single software/hardware firewall configuration out there. Get real."
You get real. They should inform the user that any firewall on the system could prevent successful validation.
And yes, you do have to run as Administrator - it SAYS so in their dialog box about why it didn't run.
Why not opt-out of responding to this post, so I don't have to read the comments of another Windows shill?
Steal one from Israel - they have lots.
Remember, there is no such thing as military security.
Why Al Qaeda hasn't figured this out yet baffles me.
Considering that the idiots are using books from libraries printed in the 1920's to learn about chemical warfare, I'm not too surprised, though.
The bottom line: the state needs enemies. The reason bin Laden hasn't been found is because Bush loves him like a brother for giving him an excuse to further the neocon agenda of fascism at home and imperialism abroad.
I just got around to downloading the Antispyware tool which has the option (not required) to use the Validation process. I decided to test the validation and discovered the following.
First, if you have a software firewall installed (I have Kerio 2.4.15), it will block the GenuineCheck program unless you allow the firewall to ask you first and give permission. I don't think MS warns you about that, although people using a firewall should know it - but I bet most don't, especially if they are just using the Windows XP SP2 firewall which is on by default.
Second, Microsoft fails to validate my system, then goes on to require a download of a SECOND piece of software which ALSO requires permission to get through the firewall AND fails to identify my system.
For the record, my Windows 2000 on which this was tested was provided to me by a developer with a legitimate key based on his membership in the MSDN program in which he gets ten seats for every MS OS there is. I am one of his "seats" nominally. Therefore my Product Key should validate.
In any event, the Validation process is onerous, stupid and fails miserably. Any "grandma" trying to go through this process is not going to be amused.
Why they don't make this as simple as Windows XP "activation" is beyond me.
Oh, yes, and you have to run as Administrator for the process to work at all, apparently (I didn't bother)...
Really secure validation method, MS, way to go, Bill - you fucking moron...
More proof that Bill is only interested in MONEY, NOT security...
Nope.
Microsoft doesn't want to support 2000 any more.
They want EVERYONE upgrading to XP so they can get more revenue to offset their constant slide down into the single digits revenue growth.
In other words, Gates is NOT concerned about ANYTHING except that MS gets more money.
Period.
End of story.
Just post a heading once a week that says:
"Microsoft fucks everybody for money again this week..."
All you need to know...who cares about the details?
"Just Say No To Microsoft"
"it didn't stop him from stealing my things"
Set up your system to flood the room with pepper spray when an intrusion is detected...
Oh, wait...better make sure it emails you that the room is full of pepper spray...
Hope you check your email frequently...
I wonder if he's also gay...:-)
(Reference to the "Gannon/Guckert" case of a gay prostitute accessing the White House press room under a phoney name to ask Scott McClellan setup questions. Google for the story. Maureen Dowd's take on it is hilarious.)
Seems like Microsoft has taken up the same method of subverting the legitimate press just like Bush has.
When you add in Maureen O'Gara and Rob Enderle, it would seem so...
First: From the article:
"The setups were hypothetical, however. Both were in the most basic configuration, an approach that some in the audience suggested may tilt the results in favor of Windows, which comes with more features.
Ford said the idea was to represent what an average system administrator may do, as opposed to a "wizard" who could take extra steps to provide plenty of security on a Linux setup, for instance."
In other words, an MS mouse monkey is considered better than someone who knows what he's doing.
Let's try that again - namely, let's set up the Windows server with it set to max lockdown versus a Linux server set the same way. Then let the hackers at both of them and see which falls first.
Didn't try that, did they? Didn't think so...
Second: this is a WEB SERVER test - a system set up to ALLOW access. NONE of this has ANY bearing on Windows predilection for allowing spyware, viruses, trojans, worms, etc. into the operating system.
Not to mention that IIS 6 is reputedly much more secure than IIS 5. Let's try it with IIS 5 which is probably in more use than 6 worldwide.
In other words, the headline that Windows is more secure than Linux is BULLSHIT AS USUAL.
It may be marketing fluff, but you can blame the nanotech Johnny-come-latelies who decided to call everything in chemistry "nanotech" so they could steamroll Drexler's concepts and get the credit for themselves, while arguing that none of Drexler's ideas were valid.
/.
Richard Smalley comes to mind...
Character assassination and nit-picking are so much easier than coming up with an original idea.
Look at
BTW, nanotech does not build things "atom by atom" - it is intended to build on a molecular scale, not an atomic scale. In some cases, such as the famous IBM initials spelled out in atoms, this is relevant, but in most cases nanotech will be operating on molecules, not atoms.
That will be the prelude to femtotech, picotech, etc...:-)
China's not into paying to make Bill richer.
Only US corporations are that stupid.
China is promoting Linux and will continue to do so. The real threat will come when Lenovo, using IBM's expertise, starts producing serious amounts of actual PC hardware for export to the West rather than just for the Chinese.
Neither the US nor Japan nor Taiwan are going to like that at all.
China's "extension to the West" is IBM, not Microsoft.
And that's what Bill is moaning about.
I can see it now.
Microsoft trucks!
Just look at our huge fluffy tires made of tissue paper...and loaded with flammable hydrogen to make them light and airy...
A uniguely friendly consumer experience...
Where do you want to go today on our tires?
That's not what I've read. What I've read from several sources is that it PROTECTS more than Spybot, but finds little more than Ad-Aware and Spybot used in combination - and does not find things that the other two do - just like the other two.
In other words, run all three to enhance your protection.
In other news, Condi says Iran is a "totalitarian state trying to get nuclear weapons..."
Well, this guy can join the other lying bitch in my trashcan...
Real tough questions tossed at him, Rob..."How can you say Windows TCO is lower than Linux?"...Way to go...
How about "When are you fucking monopolists going to start sueing everybody with your patents - maybe when FireFox has ninety percent of the browser market...?"
How about "How many MORE 'security initiatives' is Bill going to launch this year alone?"
And how about "Is WinFS the same file system you guys were planning about ten years ago...and you still can't do it?"
Fucking crap interview - I get more insight from Scott McClellan...or maybe the "fair and balanced" sex freak O'Reilly...
This "rewrite" is simply to tighten - supposedly; we all know how good Microsoft is at this - security holes in IE.
In other words, this piece of shit will STILL be totally incompatible with HTML, CSS and ECMAScript standards - AND five minutes after it is downloaded, there will be five security holes found in it.
Same old Microsoft bullshit. They need to coin an acronym for "Yet Another Microsoft Security Initiative"...
Bottom line: more lies. More bullshit. (Yes, I remember Elwood: "It's not lies. It's just...bullshit.")
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Only on
Let me clue you in. There are dozens of companies selling Usenet access at reasonable prices. Usenet is THE premier - and one-stop - place to get FREE babe pictures (without spyware or popups or dialers or whatever.) It is also an excellent one-stop place to get questions answered about virtually any subject.
No, moron, Usenet is not going anywhere...
"IBM has been spending the last couple years paddling to get in position to ride that wave if it crests."
And the sale of the PC division to the Chinese is one of those "paddles"...
Which is why Bill is moaning and groaning about "communists" since he can see the Chinese writing on the wall - and it spells "Linux" - however you do that in Chinese..:-)
In twenty years, the Chinese will BURY Microsoft by shutting them out of the biggest middle-class economy on the planet...
(Unless of course Bush nukes them first - which is what the whole North Korea thing is about...)
"the MS folks (in general) have a pretty good grasp on anything said here, and if there is something to learn from a post or topic, they learn it."
/. - and you think Bill and Steve are going to care?
Right - some low-level coder thinks he gets the idea of OSS from
Get serious.
Besides which, as far as I'm concerned, most of Microsoft's people are morons, based on the quality of software they turn out...
And if they aren't morons as far as software quality, then they're morons for working for a company with the product managers who control the sorry product that does get turned out...
But then, most humans are morons, so why should I be surprised...
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
God, you're right! What a clueless bitch!
Check out the posted comments in response to her article - virtually everybody is telling her the same thing!
One guy said even Laura Didio isn't trying to spin this news as good for SCO like O'Gara is!